Update April 13, 8:20 PM: The title of this article has been changed to more accurately reflect the content of the audio recording.
BenSwann.com previously reported on the controversial, caught-on-video shooting of Walter Scott by South Carolina Police Officer Michael Slager. The incident began when Officer Slager pulled over Walter Scott in North Charleston over a broken taillight on Scott’s vehicle. When Scott fled the scene on foot, fearing that he might end up in jail as he had fallen behind on child support payments, Slager unsuccessfully attempted to catch him and then opened fire on Scott from behind with 8 shots, killing him.
Though Officer Slager claimed that Scott had attempted to steal his stun gun during a struggle, causing him to feel threatened, bystander video appeared to contradict the claim that Scott was a threat, and Slager was charged with murder. Meanwhile, The Guardian recently released an audio clip, embedded below and taken from Officer Slager’s dashcam, in which he can be heard laughing about being fired up on adrenaline after killing Walter Scott during a debriefing with a senior officer.
The above-embedded audio begins with Officer Slager asking a senior officer what to expect after shooting Scott. The unidentified officer said, “We’ll get you up to headquarters… Probably once they get you there, we’ll take you home. Take your crap off, take your vest off, kind of relax for two or three. They’re going to want to interview you. Once they get here, it will be real quick. They’re gonna’ tell you you’re gonna’ be out for a couple of days and you’ll come back and they’ll interview you then. They’re not going to ask you any kind of questions right now. They’ll take your weapon, and we’ll go from there. That’s pretty much it… The last one we had, they waited a couple of days to interview officially, like, sit down and tell what happened.”
Then, the senior officer told Slager, “By the time you get home, it would probably be a good idea to kind of jot down your thoughts on what happened, you know, once the adrenaline quits pumping.”
Officer Slager then replied while laughing, “It’s pumping!”
The above-embedded clip came from a longer audio recording that also captured the moment when Officer Slager answered a phone call from his wife and gave his side of the story to her. Said Officer Slager on the call, “Hey. Hey, everything’s OK, OK?… He grabbed my taser, yeah. Yeah, he was running from me.”